Not all sunshine and rainbows

Well this last weekend mother nature had the last laugh. Saturday we had planned to train our local underwater search & rescue team on how to use Archer and conduct a sidescan survey of some previously located targets in Dyes Inlet, but the wind and waves had other ideas.

Luckily we remembered some common sense and kept the prototype unit on the trailer vice converting it into a very expensive calibration target.

The team enjoyed a brief training on pre-launch checks and then retired to the warmth of our local cafe to view some of the imagery collected during the wonderful testing days back in March.

Sunday looked better and it seemed like I could at least make it out to the lake for a short run, but it turns out the boat launch wasn’t open yet for the year. I tried heading out to Hood Canal but by the time I got there the weather had turned and launching wasn’t an option, so I took the long way home (to check on another lake’s launch) and packed it up early.

While it may seem like this weekend was a failure even failing to get on the water taught us a lot about our comfort level with the vehicle and what we need to do to improve it so that we’re able to operate rain or shine.